Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. Author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), and more recently Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), and Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), his many fans have been badgering him to join the blogosphere for years. The CFZ Blog Network is proud to have finally persuaded him to do so.

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Thursday, 19 July 2012

ICELAND’S STAMP(S) OF CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL APPROVAL

My book Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals on Stamps (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2008) contains a special appendix devoted to stamps depicting creatures of cryptozoology, including such famous examples as the yeti, bigfoot, Nessie, thylacine, Ogopogo, and all manner of sea monsters. On 19 March 2009, moreover, a new set of postage stamps with a cryptozoological and zoomythological theme was issued by Iceland, and the creatures portrayed on this mini-sheet of ten extremely attractive stamps are so unusual and hitherto-obscure that they definitely deserve some attention here.

Perhaps the best-known is the skoffin. This is usually said to be a basilisk-like entity, but is depicted on its stamp as mammalian in nature, and I have documented elsewhere in the past.

Far less familiar, however, are bizarre creatures such as the coast-inhabiting skeljaskaimsli (shell monster), which is a rusty-brown, multi-limbed animal with a tapir-like trunk and pangolin scales; a grave-robbing mystery felid called the urdarkottur or ghoul cat (more details appear in my forthcoming book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery); and the highly poisonous ofuguggi or reverse-fin trout, whose fins all turn forwards instead of back.

Completing this interesting set are three different varieties of mystery whale - the red-maned hrosshvalur (horse-whale), the raudkembingur or red-crest (both inspired perhaps by oarfishes Regalecus glesne?), and the massive-eared mushveli (mouse-whale); the sheep-molesting, shore-dwelling fjorulalli or beachwalker, portrayed as being very seal-like in its stamp; the huge selamodir (seal mother), which protects normal-sized seals if they are threatened but appears less seal-like in its stamp; and the amphibious saeneyti (sea cattle) that sometimes mingle with true cattle.

A useful new book, Meeting With Monsters, which documents many of these curious Icelandic crypto-beasts, and is available in English and Icelandic, can be ordered from Postphil Iceland. For further details, check out the following link:

Hi there, I've just tested the link and it works for me. It takes you to the Icelandic stamps home page, with the latest issues presented on it, so you have to use the page's search engine to find this set of monsters stamps. Hope this helps. All the best, Karl

Years ago, I read about a case of two Icelandic scientists (zoologists or geologists, can't recall which) who personally observed a foal (colt) appear from the ocean. He did some running around on the beach and then jumped into the waves again. That was a great story!

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